Skimmed through the posts here, and some things occur to me:
1. It's easy to look back and judge people, saying "Why didn't they leave?" Some good answers were given to that, so I'll ask another question; "Why haven't we revolted?" From the 90's and Ruby Ridge, Vashon Island, Waco and many other murders and mass slaughters by the Clintons; and many since then as well. Why have we not stood up? And now we have the insanity going on all over the US. We have the outright theft of an election by avowed Communists, and still no revolution. Why? I tried for many years, but even the so called "militias" would not act back when just showing up would have been enough. Now I fear it may take much more.
Lesson: we are human and have the same failings as the Jews that stayed did. Many did see what was happening and took action, leaving Germany and Russia. The poor risked death walking overland and sneaking into Israel. The wealthy early on were able to leave, but often becoming poor in the process. My wife's father narrowly escaping Nazi Germany to the UK where he was fortunate to have family who would sponsor him. So many saw, and many left risking all in the process. But many more stayed hoping that at some point it would all blow over. And many of those had no choice. Would you have risked taking a family to freedom if it might mean some or all dieing?
Now, knowing that in oppressive regimes it is likely your family will be killed along with you, and knowing that at Waco USA children were burned or suffocated while armored vehicles blocked their escape, just why haven't you taken a stand against what you see happening today? Maybe some of you in different ways have (other than posting on the internet), but maybe you/we need to do more.
2. It's a movie! So the producers and director did not focus on Jewish spirituality. That does not mean they had no faith. I would posit that, having talked to survivors and studied that time their faith was for the most part very strong. Saying they had no faith because a movie did not say they did is like saying Trump did nothing because CNN said he didn't. Gotta cry 'Bull!' on either statement.
Lesson to learn here is use your head; consider the source. Look into it yourself.
3. Someone touched on the idea of the Jews as a disease, but attributed it all to Communism. Not true. Communists were considered a disease for the same reason as Jews: they were hated and the Nazi's wanted to get rid of them. Not all (or even most) German Jews were Communists. Many eastern European Jews were because they had been raised in a Communist system, and it's all they knew. But many of them hated Communism because they had experienced it. They were primarily killed for being Jews, not Communists.
To understand the idea of people being classed a disease we must understand the root ideology. And it wasn't Nazism, it was (then) modern medicine. Look up the "science" of Eugenics. And this movement was if anything stronger in the US than in Germany. Medical doctors were given the authority to kill infants they thought flawed without consent, covering their crimes with falsified death certificates. "Inferior" or "undesireable" races were sterilized without consent or knowledge, right here in the US of A.
In Germany the first gas chambers were not in concentration camps, but in medical sanitariums. The insane, mentally retarded, and handicapped children were the first victims. And you guessed it, death certificates were falsified and parents notified after the fact. But these "diseases" were being eradicated from German society. Can't have defectives polluting a master race.
From there is was a small step to also classify people who were different as a disease and do what we always try to do with disease: eradicate it. Communists, yes, because they were competitors in the oppressive regime game. Jews and Gypsies because they were different, and we can't trust different people, right? Then finally men and women like Pastor Niemoller and Corrie Ten Boom- good Christians but they stood up against what they saw happening under the Nazi regime. They must be infected, right? Quarintine 'em and maybe kill them when people have forgotten (Pastor Niemoller was killed shortly before liberation).
The point is the first act of wholesale murder by a government is to demonize then classify as something undesirable those it hates, mistrusts, or fears. And support for such classifications often come from sectors we do not expect: medicine, religion (not faith), or those ever so 'tolerant' leftists.
4. Some have said no one wanted them. Mostly true, however some countries did take them on a quota basis. And the Phillipines said they'd take every Jew that could make it there. Long way and a lot of water, but still the offer was made. But by and large, the posters who said that are correct. There was a lot of anti-Semitism in the US at the time, especially in the NE US where most of the political power resided; so to our shame we turned most away.
Point here is we are usually the last refuge for those oppressed. Where will we go when we've lost it here?
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